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Taine, Hippolyte, 1828-1893

"The French Revolution - Volume 3"

Our fellow
citizens reproach us with having despoiled them of their grain in
favor of the large communes." - "All means of subsistence are
exhausted," writes the district of Louviers;[106] "we are reduced here
for a month past to eating bran bread and boiled herbs, and even this
rude food is getting scarce. Bear in mind that we have seventy-one
thousand people to govern, at this very time subject to all the
horrors of famine, a large number of them having already perished,
some with hunger and others with diseases engendered by the poor food
they live on. " - In the Caen district,[107] "the unripe peas, horse
peas, beans, and green barley and rye are attacked;" mothers and
children go after these in the fields in default of other food; "other
vegetables in the gardens are already consumed; furniture, the
comforts of the well to do class, have become the prey of the farming
egoist; having nothing more to sell they consequently have nothing
with which to obtain a morsel of bread."
" It is impossible," writes the representative on mission, "to wait
for the crop without further aid. As long as bran lasted the people
ate that; none can now be found and despair is at its height.


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